Linguist-Educator Exchange

Posts Tagged ‘names’

San Diego, beautiful city by the sea, is opening its arms for a Word Detectives weekend workshop with Pete Bowers and me. The registration flyer is below — please join us if you can!

Now, then, let’s look at San Diego, shall we? The city was named for St. Didacus of Alcalá, though the Spaniard never saw its shores. Didacus is Latin, of course, and Diego is the Spanish. The English version is James, as in Saint James, known in French as Saint Jacques, and in Portuguese as São Diogo. Other Latinate variants include Iago (as in Othello), Jaime, Giacomo, and Jacó. Germanic variants include Jacob or Jakob, Kobe, Koppel, and Yankel — the last two are Yiddish nicknames. Yankel! I like the idea of having a workshop in Saint Yankel.

The storied pilgrimage trail through western Europe is called El Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spanish, Le Chemin de Saint Jacques in French, and the Way of St. James in English. The scallop shell that marks the path carries a rich symbolism. Of course, seafood eaters know that coquilles Saint-Jacques are scallops cooked with mushrooms, cream, cheese, and I think bread crumbs, but I’m the wrong person to ask.

Perhaps the most interesting etymological tidbit I found about Diego is that the ethnic slur dego also derives from Diego! All of these names derive, however circuitously, form the Hebrew Ya’aqobh, from ‘aquebh, ‘heel.’ The name itself denotes ‘one that takes by the heel’ — if you’ve ever read about Jacob in the book of Genesis, you’ll know why.

So, take this opportunity by the heel, and join Pete Bowers and me for two days of inquiry into, discovery of, and evidence about language in San Diego, which simply calls itself America’s Finest City.